My 2.0 experience
Some of my issues might be due to not knowing. Some may be due to bugs or just unimplemented features.
I've written a big band arrangement. 5 saxes, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, guitar, bass, piano drums. My first mistake was to start with a condensed score. This I did actually using version 1.3, because there was this nice explode plugin, that worked quite well. But I transfered the score to 2.0 because of its better features for handling parts. But of course there was no explode functionality in 2.0, at least I couldn't find a working plugin. So I took the parts back to 1.3, did the explode and took the single parts back to 2.0. I might write the scores in the future on a full big band score, all parts on the top most stave in each section. Five parts in 1st alto sax, 4 parts in 1st trumpet, 4 parts in 1st trombone. Then I can hide all other staves until I'm ready to explode everything.
My actual issues are as follows. The score has a three eighths pickup bar. How do you create a real pickup bar? I clicked at the first bar and set it to nominal 4/4 and actual 3/8, which looked good as soon as I entered the three eighths in some of the parts. Issue #1. All other parts got a 4th rest and an 8th rest in the pickup bar, in that order. The right order would of course be an 8th rest and a 4th rest. This could be changed by hand, but it would be nice to get it automatically right in 15 staves.
Issue #2. When I created the parts, I got nice multi measure rests. But the pickup bar was counted as a whole bar. The score has a 2 bar intro plus the pickup bar. Then there's a double bar line, showing the start of the 1st sixteen bar section. Each part with only rests before the double bar line shows a three bar rest, when it should be the 3/8 pickup bar and then a 2 bar multiple rest. So it's a problem with the pickup bar again. Is there a checkbox somewhere for making it a pickup bar, which would correct the multiple bar rest?
Issue #3. Pickup bar again. The pickup bar shouldn't be counted. Bar #1 should be the first complete bar. But MuseScore seems to think the pickup bar is #1. Again, this can be changed by hand, but it could be nice to get it right automatically. Is there a checkbox for making it a pickup bar...
Issue #4. Multiple bar rest again. I had entered a "To Coda" in bar 15. The trombones had only rests in bars 13-18 something. What they had in the created parts was a 6 bar multiple rest at bar 13 and no "To Coda" anywhere. There should have been a 3 bar multiple rest with the "To Coda", then another 3 bar rest.
Issue #5. The orchestra score was of course very densed with 17 staves (scaling 1.0). The parts were of course bigger (scaling 1.764). But the parts needed more stretch. Where can the amount of stretch and the scaling be set for the parts to be created? I can't go through 17 parts and do a proper scaling and stretching for each. I need to get it almost right at once. Stretching the whole score won't affect the stretching of the parts to be created.
Other than that, MuseScore 2.0 is just great!
Comments
Thanks for your comments! In general, it's usually better to start separate threads for separate discussions, otherwise this thread could long and unwieldy very quickly. But to address your comments here:
- I actually implemented a native explode function for 2.0 a few days ago, it's just not merged yet. It will be improved over the plugin from 1.3 in that it won't require you to manually copy things first, it will also be somewhat smarter about places where there are more or fewer notes than parts.
1) I think I understand what you are saying. It's not about parts per se. It's true of any score - set any measure to actual 3/8, and you get quarter rest followed by rest. MuseScore doens't know you are creating a pickup bar as opposed to creating a 3/8 measure for some other reason, so it's not really a given that eighth followed by quarter is correct. But I suppose it could do some special casing if it's the first measure of the score.
2) I think I understand what you are saying here too, but when I change actual duration of the first bar in an empty test score, I find it *does* get excluded from the initial mmrest automatically. Can you post the score you are having problems with (or perhaps just an excerpt, if the problem remains after deleting everything after the first few measures) and precise steps to reproduce?
3) In the same dialog where you change the duration, "Exclude from measure count". This is done for you if you select the "pickup bar" option in the Create New Score wizard.
4) I take it you are using the Beta build from a couple of months ago? There was bug just like what you are describing fixed shortly after the Beta, I think. If you can reproduce this in a score created in a recently nightly build, please start a new thread and attach the score and steps to reproduce - or just submit a bug report (which you can now do directly from the Help menu in MuseScore).
5) 2.0 is definitely much improved here over 1.3. For future scores, you can take advantage of the "Style for part" option (Edit / Preferences / Score) where you can specify a style file (created via Style / Save Style) that is automatically applied to created parts. Although it should already been the case that the parts don't inherit the scaling of the score. That might be because you generated the parts in 1.3? Had you generated them in 2.0, it would have been regular scaling (1.764) already. But you can also hit the "Apply to all Parts" button in either the Page Layout or Style dialogs to apply any changes to all parts at once. Hmm, that too might have been added post-Beta.
In reply to Thanks for your comments! In by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for the quick reply. I don't think this thread needs to be continued. Your answer was more or less complete. I'm sure I can work things out from this. I had a look at the score and the trombone pickup bar actually had a full rest, not the 1/4 and 1/8 rests. I entered the 1/4 and 1/8 rests and recreated the trombone part and voilà, I got a beautiful pickup bar, then the 2 bar rest. What I don't know now is how there was this full rest in the 3/8 bar, while all other parts had the 1/4 and 1/8 rests there.
In reply to Thanks for the quick reply. I by jotti
OK, just one more comment - in 1.3, pickup bars got full measures rests, which is not good. In 2.0, they get "regular" rests, but there is a command Ctrl+Shift+Delete to convert back to full measure rests should you want. I suspect either that part was created in 1.3, which used full measures rests by default, or else you inadvertently gave the full measure rest command.
In reply to OK, just one more comment - by Marc Sabatella
Yes, I messed with 1.3, which I needed for the explode thing. I think I exported an XML from 2.0, then I opened it in 1.3, explode it, saved it and opened it again in 2.0. I might have had the full rests all the time ther, since I originally started to write the condensed score in 1.3. Anyway, I'm most sure I'll have no problem with pickup bars in the future as long as I mind the measure numbering and the rests, if I ever mess 1.3 and 2.0 in the same project - which I probably won't after finding the nightly version with the explode function.
In reply to Yes, I messed with 1.3, which by jotti
If you want to track this, here is the issue formally requesting the feature: #9354: explode chord into separate staves; implode staves into chord. And here is the pull request that implements it: https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/pull/1444.